Leira
Personality Leira is shy, and excitable, and maybe a bit over-sensitive. She was the runt of her litter, and has always been small ever since. Among wolves that's a weakness, and she was pushed around by her littermates when she was a pup. Now that she's Garou she hasn't shaken the sense that she ought to be at the bottom of the totem pole. The trouble is, while some wolves are meant to be Omegas, Leira really isn't--there's too much steel down underneath her insecurities. She's insatiably curious, especially about homid things, and all too often feels like she doesn't really fit in. She doesn't quite belong in the mostly-homid Glass Walker tribe, but she's too interested in humans and their ways to really fit among lupus, either. Like any teenager, she'd rather be sitting around or playing than seeing to her duties, but she does try very hard to do her job as a Theurge--it's just that her self-image gets in the way. Hopefully she can find her place and blossom into the Garou she's meant to be. Playlist You can listen to it in order on autoplay here. Sheet Freebies Spent: :Ablities: ::Skills: Etiquette: 2, Marksmanship: 2, Technology: 2 (Total: 6) ::Knowledges: Computer: 2, Linguistics: 2, Medicine: 4, Rituals: 2 (Total: 10) :Advantages: Mentor: 1, Willpower: 1 (Total: 2) :Gifts: Spirit Speech: 7, Umbral Tether: 7 (Total: 14) :Merits: +7 :Flaws: -6 Total Spent: 33 Freebies Character Advancement Advancement History Specialties & Expertise Intelligence: Creative :Leira has a rather overactive imagination, especially for a lupus, and is usually coming up with explanations for things she doesn't understand. She connects things up in a very creative, visual way, finding similarities between what she knows and what's new, and sometimes coming up with new things wholesale. Marksmanship: Pistols :The Glass Walkers made sure Leira knows the basics of how to fire a gun. Load, aim, shoot, safeties, that sort of thing. Also, she really likes laser tag. Technology: Computer Hardware :Between avidly watching other Glass Walkers and taking apart older versions herself, Leira's figured out the basics of how a computer works, internally--at least to the extent of being able to put together parts bought from a store, say. She's still not sure what the heck transistors and conductors are, but she's going to figure it out someday! Culture: Popular Culture :Leira loves movies, and television, and music, and has learned pretty much everything she knows and understands about humans, besides what other Garou have taught her, from these mediums. Which could be good, but could also be very bad... Linguistics: English :Leira has been taught English and speaks it with a fair degree of fluency, though it still sounds as though it's not her native tongue. Lore: Garou :Leira has been a Garou for a few years now, and has learned more than just the basics. Merits & Flaws Charmed Existence :Despite her hardships, Leira's always managed to get by. For some reason, she's just luckier than other people, not quite failing as much as she should, and so on. Because of this she holds herself to a higher standard than is really reasonable. Though the reason isn't clear, it's likely something spiritual--the spirits denied her Fostern challenge in part because she only got through because of this merit. She'll need to learn to aim higher and use her luck to spur her to bigger things before the spirits will agree she deserves to be Fostern. Eidetic Memory :Leira has a very good memory for a lupus, and it's partly because of this that she's picked up on human things so quickly. This is not a function of her Change... she's always had a good memory--though when she was simply a wolf it was less pronounced. Forced Transformation: :In the choice between "fight" or "flight" Leira usually chooses flight--she's small, she's not terribly strong or dextrous, and she doesn't really like fighting all that much. Her First Change went badly and since then there's some blockage keeping her from going to Crinos when she loses control; subconsciously, she just wants to get away. So when she does frenzy, when her Rage takes over, she invariably goes to lupus. Quite often, if she's able to, she runs. Low Self Image :Between being a runt and failing her Fostern challenge, Leira just doesn't think that highly of herself. If she doubts herself, the doubts make it harder to succeed. She's convinced she's a bad Theurge and a bad Garou, that she ought to have been born homid and is a terrible Glass Walker. None of these are neccesarily true, but Leira is young yet, and insecure. Strict Carnivore :It may be from being lupus-born, or it may be hereditary--either way, Leira gets no nourishment from vegetables, and must eat meat to survive. She still likes plenty of other foods, though, perhaps all the more because they're a luxury and not a neccesity. Backgrounds Allies :Leira Firsted and grew up at the Sept of Fire and Ice in Aspen. Several of the Glass Walkers there are friendly with her, including Jenna Pine (see the Extras page), Athro Glass Walker. Mentor :Another of the Garou at Fire and Ice, Baron Grey (see the Extras page) has been Leira's teacher since she Firsted and is also her great-uncle. History Leira was born in the spring of 2005, to a wolf Kin in the mountains near Aspen, Colorado. She was small and runty from the start, and though the nearby Sept performed Baptism of Fire on the pups something went wrong and she was tagged as Kin. Her father, Nicholas Grey, left Aspen without knowing any of the pups he'd fathered would be Garou, and the pup that would later be known as Leira went about learning to be a wolf. As the runt, Leira was on the bottom of the pecking order in her litter. She was not strong, or fast, but she was exceptionally smart for a wolf. It was this and luck that allowed her to survive as she grew. By the time she was an adult, she consistently had the last share of kills, sometimes even being driven away by the stronger wolves in the pack. She figured out where smaller animals were, kept herself fed, and found shelter away from the pack when mating season came--though she wasn't old enough to bear pups yet, she instinctively avoided the battles that would surely ensue. She was two years old when the Rage started to really build within. She snapped back at the larger wolves more (and got herself in some trouble), and found herself pushed to the edge of the pack more and more. What triggered her Change, though, was a chance visit from the Glass Walkers at the Sept of Fire and Ice, checking up on the Kin. She picked up the scent of the strange wolf passing through their territory and, curious, followed it back toward the city. She'd seen roads and cars and people before--these things are hard to miss, even in the deepest of the wilds--but never buildings like this. She lost the scent, but nosed around the town for a short time before running into a group of boys who took her for a dog. They decided to torment the poor animal, and Rage erupted. Leira Changed to Crinos and tore into the boys. Leira was so small that she was barely larger than the boys even in Crinos, and though she killed one of the boys the others were only injured, and indeed, fought back, injuring Leira in turn. As luck would have it, Leira was near a Walker safehouse, and the very Glass Walker she'd followed back to the city happened upon the newly Changed cub. He managed to stop the frenzy, got aid for the boys and got Leira to the safehouse before the authorities arrived. The Veil was repaired, and the cub introduced to her new life. The Glass Walker who had found Leira was Baron Grey, her great-uncle (though she didn't know the familial relationship just yet.) He recognized her lupine form, and the resemblance to her father in homid. He gave her her human name, and became her mentor. Leira found that she loved being homid. It was a fascinating experience, to think like a human, and humans were fascinating creatures. Though she still was a carnivore in homid form, human food was delicious even if it did her no good--and there was definitely enough of it! She could be warm and dry, have plenty of food, and entertainment of all sorts. She grew to love movies and television, and it was quickly discovered that she had an amazing memory. She would memorize entire movies after watching them only a few times. After only a few months, Leira was sent on her Rite of Passage. The autumn spirits were holding on to the Umbra in Aspen and refusing to allow winter to come to pass. She was sent to aid the a winter spirit in negotiating with the autumn spirits so they would relinquish and allow winter to come to the Umbra. First, Leira had to track down the winter spirit she was supposed to help, and she convinced it that she wished to help winter come. They went together to find the chief autumn spirit of the Aspen area, but the other spirits confounded and confused them, trying to melt the winter spirit. Leira told the winter spirit to wait and forged ahead, plowing through piles of leaves and Umbral storms to find the spirit she sought. The spirit, it turned out, was upset because the summer spirits had held on longer than usual that year because the weather was shifting and summers were getting longer. Leira managed to get it to agree to allow winter to come if it would be allowed to have autumn come earlier next year. Then she went to the dormant summer spirits and negotiated with them for balance with autumn. With all agreements in place, autumn faded away and winter came to the Aspen Umbra. Leira had passed her Rite, and was welcomed into Cockroach's tribe. Life settled into a relatively easy routine. Leira stayed at the Walker's Union Building watching movies as much as she could, she was taught more about human and Garou society. She learn Gifts and Rites, talked to the spirits, and learned to play laser tag. Though she knew she ought to try and challenge for Fostern she didn't feel up to it for quite some time. She wanted to be a good Garou, and a good Theurge, but there were so many other things to learn in the world! Finally, though, Leira and the Sept felt that she was ready to be Fostern. She challenged formally and was sent into the Umbra once more. This time her Challenge was more difficult. A group of termite-spirits and a group of cockroach-spirits were battling over territory in a ski lodge owned by one of the Glass Walker Kin. The battle was causing an infestation in the real world, and unrest in the Umbra. Leira was to solve the conflict without harming any of the cockroach-spirits (Cockroach, after all, would be pretty angry if a Glass Walker was killing his brood) and without pissing off the termites too much either. She went on into the Umbra and down to where the spirits were battling it out. This "battling" mostly consisted of infringing on each other's territory, with webbing and colonies. When negotiation failed, Leira gave up and went after the termite queen. The spirit was huge, and a grand battle ensued. Though she tried to negotiate with the spirit after beating it down it was clearly driven mad, and she was forced to kill the queen. With their queen dead the other termites seemed aimless, so she led them to a new home in another colony, where they attached to a new queen. The cockroaches seemed pleased, and the Umbra more settled. Leira emerged beaten but exhilarated, and convinced that she'd passed her challenge. The Garou seemed to think so--but then the spirits denied her and refused to allow her to be Fostern. The spirits were convinced Leira had cheated somehow, for she'd had strange and unusual luck. She denied this vehemently, and though the spirits believed her, they said that if she was simply naturally lucky she should have done more with it--she should have gone above and beyond, not just done the minimum. They insisted that she try again when she could do better, or succeed on her own merits. Leira was hurt and confused. The spirits had only told her the reason, and both she and they refused to tell anyone else. She began to worry about what she'd done wrong, what rule she'd broken without realizing. She became obsessed with being sure she was following every tenet of the Litany precisely, with doing everything perfectly. After all, if she had some mystical help, then her success was not her own, and she had to do better than anyone expected. Six months passed, with Leira becoming more and more uptight and withdrawn. Then, in the middle of December, Nicholas Grey showed up in Aspen again with his wife Kennedy. Nicholas' old mentor, Jenna Pine, brought them along to meet Leira. Once she understood just what Nicholas was to her (comparing him to Pacha from The Emperor's New Groove), she took to both him and Kennedy. She found them comforting, and nice, and she could talk to Kennedy about her problems and... well, it was great. When they offered to have her come to Crystal Springs, as the Sept of the Looking Glass needed a Theurge, she jumped at the chance. She liked Crystal Springs a great deal, and the people there were nice and she seemed to get along with them. She decided to stay for good, and went back to Aspen to say her goodbyes. Maybe she could figure out, here, how to be a proper Theurge and a good Glass Walker. Etc Leira's Homid PB is Ellen Page. File:Leira2.jpg|Out in the snow File:Leira3.jpg|Calling on the spirits File:LeiraHomid2.jpg|Tiny, isn't she? File:LeiraHomid3.jpg|All dressed up! Category:Character Archive